Saturday, March 19, 2011

I never saw the desert until I was 21, and God willing I never will again. It was the second day of Autumn in the year of our Lord, 1191, exactly a month after the Siege of Acre was won and the Christians took Acre back from the Muslims. I was a fresh knight, fighting for the Knight's Templar with King Richard for the Pope; for God. I was taught that knights were an honorable and noble caste, but I had learned otherwise about knights, about corruption, about castes. Knights were bound to the Code of Chivalry, a humble promise, though a man can always find a way through a promise. A knight was pious, humble, a protector of the weak; the women and children, but to many knights, those who were not nobles were not worth protecting. Rapes, looting, defiling of holy grounds such as churches and graveyards. Many did not deserve being called a servant of God. I frequently wondered why any God would allow being represented by such "subjects".

A messenger from the King arrived with new orders, so we withdrew form Acre and headed into the middle of the harsh desert. The message told of an object of great importance, held within a temple, eight days travel from Acre. The travel was possibly the most boring thing a man could do. We crossed the empty desert. We charged into nowhere. We shouted at nothing. We looked towards the East, to our objective, the Temple.

We had arrived after our stint in the sun. I do not know quite what I expected, but it wasn’t we got, that thick, heavy silence. Behind the wind of the canyon and the sand hitting the stone, there was… nothing, no birds, no insects. Just deathly stillness. The place had an eerie tranquility to it. The message's directions were very specific so we had no trouble finding our way. We had made our way into the canyon. It was a slot canyon, so we left our horses behind, the way was only wide enough to go single file through. The light shone through from the narrow and wide openings at the top of the canyon. I had noticed most had been shaped as crosses or arrows, pointing the way, implying some religious importance. We came to a clearing in the valley. The Temple loomed over us like an ominous cloud.

The Temple was hard to describe, it was held up by pillars, but they were neither round nor fluted, just an odd, smooth, flowing pattern. There was no sign of individual pieces in the masonry, it appeared to have been carved out of a single immense block of white rock into a flowing and rounded shape. It was slick, glimmering from the light around it, almost as if it held a thin sheet of water. There was not a spot on the face of the temple that was without covered with an inscription or an image. The shapes and figures carved on the trim and open spaces were of the most amazing craftsmanship, they looked truly real, with perfect proportions and depth, as if the people and objects were turned to stone and placed as the decorations. The steps leading to its pure white porch had the length of two feet, one in front of the other, and there were at least two hundred of them. They were the only things that looked mildly out of place, there was a huge, magnificent temple, whose steps were dwarfed in comparison. The Temple looked as if it was made for a giant, and the steps were for nothing more than servants.

Once we had gotten over our awe-struck state, we had collected ourselves and entered the temple. The inside was as grand as the outside, with the same style of pillars, inscriptions, and figures, with only one difference. On the far side of the room, there was a wall with a large carving of the three crosses and above them a large goblet, with stone drops falling to the ground below the crosses. The entire building was pure white, not a single imperfection of grey or black. No dust, no sand or any other debris from the desert, the whole monument was immaculate, as if the place was just built; but that couldn’t be right. The whole structure felt incalculably old to me. It was lit by lamps burning a golden ore, producing a dim yellow light. It was cold and unnerving, yet the light was mildly reassuring. There was a set of stairs leading down deeper into the temple.

Our eight man chapter had split, I and three other men went down the stairs, taking with us one of the glimmering lamps, to investigate, while the rest stood guard and tried to interpret the pearly scripture. The carvings led us to believe this place held an artifact of great religious importance. We were not sure what it was this Temple protected, we had narrowed it to the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant, the True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, and the Titulus Crucis, the title nailed above Jesus' head, proclaiming him King of the Jews.

The stairs ended at a crossroad, each path leading down a glazed white stairwell. The three of us each took a set, with the extra coming with me. We descended the gradation to the right, it was sparkling magnificently from the golden light. Every few levels in no real pattern there was a stone door which was, unlike the rest of the Temple, made of granite. Unable to get them to budge in the slightest bit, we left the doors alone and continued down. The stairs finally ended with one last stone door, and the walls simply sloped away into a darkness. I tossed down a coin, waiting for a sound, but heard nothing. Deathly stillness. I pulled a torch from my belt, lit it with the lamp, and flung it down, but to no avail. The light was quickly swallowed, the walls did not have the glimmer the floor held. Neither of us spoke, we just turned to ascend back to the top when we saw the dried blood, our light glimmering off it. The blood led just a few feet and showed what was barely recognizable as the corpse of a man, leaning his back on the door. His chainmail had been ripped to shreds, he was riddled with gashes, his tabard was in tatters, and I barely recognized it as being of the kind French knights wore during the First Crusade, with a golden cross on a white background. We only had a few seconds to look at him before a sharp abrupt scream rang through the shaft. It echoed like the buzzing of far away insects in the desert, swallowed almost instantly, as if shushed. Even the echo rang only once.

We rushed quickly to the top, swords drawn. My friend led the way, holding up his shield as I held the lamp. We met the other two who went to investigate and, in a wedge formation, moved swiftly, shields drawn, except for me. I had sheathed my sword to move quicker and held the lamp. The Temple was deathly quiet around, there was not a trace of the four other men that had come on this pilgrimage with us. I could taste bile rising in my throat as panic threatened to cripple me; I felt crushed between the stairs to the darkness on one side and the dead canyon and harsh desert on the other. The silence rang in my ears and I struggled to still myself.

What approached us, I can barely describe. The thing, the first one that caught my eye, was wearing the skin of a French knight, mottled and rotted. The head lolled, limp on the shoulders and flailed when the monstrosity moved, tongue swollen and eyes cloudy. I could see where it was coming apart at the ill-defined joints, with ragged holes in the drying flesh. At the bottom of each of these raw pits was a darkness that seemed to churn and froth like an angry cloud.

The horror moved suddenly, the head snapping and rolling backwards as it dashed towards us. I had the lamp gripped tightly in my hands, but it simply did not occur to me to draw my sword or shield. All I could do was gape silently at the macabre sight bearing down on us, and think absurdly of marionettes.

A warcry from the man beside me, and I turned to see a dozen more of the horrors darting silently in on us. Among them were a few more rotten French forms, but the majority wore the same red cross as us, and were pale, fresh, and soaked in blood. I caught a glimpse of the Knight Captain's glassy eyes as his head dangled limp from his shoulders; I saw the great ragged wound in his back and the shuddering darkness that inhabited his corpse when he leapt just past me without a sound, landing like a graceful predator onto the man beside me. The others around me began to drop in a silent dance of kinetic energy and blurred motion.

I had no orders, no one needed to tell me. I just ran. I sprinted through the winding canyon pressing closer to the desert. The end of the canyon hit another note of fear in me, the horses were gone. My bow, my mace, my hope. Gone. I knew I would die in the desert. I had no hope. But, when I turned back to the opening, I saw one of the rotting monsters emerge, running on all fours, the hands splayed wide and the back contorted and cracked in an impossible angle. I no longer controlled my body, I ran mechanically farther into the desert. I began to feel the wind pick up and saw a monolithic wall in the distance. It was moving towards me as I ran for it. A sandstorm, moving at a blistering pace, roaring as it approached me. I saw it as a bastion of hope. I let it embrace me.

I awoke days later, covered in sand, by a caravan of merchants. They led me back to Acre. I arrived on August 31, 1191. I made my report. I was called crazy, suffering of heatstroke, gone mad from the sun. I never saw the Saladin defeated at the Battle of Arsuf. I never saw Jaffa taken by the Christians. I did not go home with the others a year later. I was sent back to the green hills of England. Perhaps God decided that he should no longer be represented by servants such as knights. Perhaps the Devil himself did not want us to gain something that would increase faith in God. Whatever it was, I suppose there are things man is not to know, and damn if it is not true that this is for the best.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

I thought this was cool at first but the more I look at it the gayer it becomes

We had a very good first match, Dillon and I were almost the same person. We still need to get used to the new play system that's going on with arena, it's no longer pro slayer but much more arcade like in nature meaning new weapons are available that weren't before and new opportunities for play arise. But like in all other endevours we will adapt.

We were getting rolled on this map. The other team had the lock down on the upper levels and we couldn't stay together long enough to function and operate, they grabbed the power weapons and they pineed us down. The best player on their time was a sniper and a damn good one at that. Surprisingle Dillon got most of the kills and he wasn't even sick.

I blame myself for this one. It just felt like I was out of it I guess. I saw Dillon charge after people with his shields down instead of falling back to let himself recharge and I just lost it. There was a lot of screaming and no teamwork.

Well we came back and won the last game at least.

So overall it was a 2-2 practice session but I won't be satisfied until we're 4-0 like on our AC:B practices. The new expansion came out so that should be interesting and also I would like to bring up the pacing of FPS. The debate was that Call of Duty was faster in Halo. In Halo it is harder to die, this is true. You have shields and super powers and it makes things interesting. Call of Duty is all about the perks and crap and you die quite quickly. I don't think the strategy is there, however. A lot of the kills in Call of Duty are luck and bullshit. I think as a tactical and proffesional game Halo takes the cake. Go me.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

I have recently rediscovered my love of the good ol' American comic book and oh, what a love it is. My first comic book was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back when I was young enough to not be able to remember how old I was to recall this memory. In it there was an anti hero turtle and people died and were blown up. I also had a Transformers comic. Same scenario.

Just like that

That was my exposure to comics in the beginning, cool images with lots of colors and people died. It wasn't until much later when I started doing my own artwork and writing that I began to drift back into the way of comic books. The blossoming of my love took place in Groton, CT where I chanced upon a place known as Sarge's Comics in New London which was right across the river from where I attended sub school.

Notice the Green Ranger

New London was a charming and beautiful New England town and with Mystic right down the road I can tell you it was one of the most intriguing areas I had ever lived in. People were friendly, the nights were cool and the fog rolled in heavily in the morning. Old tall sailing ships could be seen in the harbor and the towns seemed to emerge from the thick evergreen forests as if it was one big painting planned for beauty and resonance. There is mysticism about New England that seemed to be everywhere you look, just under the surface. It's no wonder that Stephen King sets up most of his stories there and I can tell you you haven't lived until you've been in Salem on Halloween. Sarge's Comics was the biggest comic book shop I had ever seen with rows upon rows of comics of every genre and publisher and not to mention a basement devoted to board games and other nerd finery's. I was there looking for inspiration and dammit, I found it.

New England!

In between these epochs of my life I was big into Japanese comics and storytelling, an interest brought upon me by Cartoon Network with Tunami and various Japanese games I was playing at the time, most notably Pokemon for it's brainwashing of my young mind. The Japanese style of storytelling is as far away from reality as you can get, everything is amazingly exaggerated, there's lots of screaming and exuberant cuteness and melodrama and a horrible fascination with teenage girls that are useless and when I look back in it now I can see its appeal to my child like mind. Now, however When I compare Japanese and American style graphic storytelling there is simply no comparison to be made.

Every Japanese anything, ever

American storytelling is hard and real and at its best visceral in its presentation. It captures mainstays in American culture, violence, sex, hard truths, betrayals, the good guy doesn't always win and he's always faced with insurmountable odds and yet always manages to find a way and forge his own path. Even if he loses everything, he sucks it up and moves on. It's that hardness and realism that I crave in a good story. I tend to overlook the spandex costumes and sometimes cheesy plots that can happen. With the right writer and artist at the helm some great work can be done. It's been three years since I bought a comic book and now I get at least one a day while I'm on my lunch break at work and you know what? I'm glad I came back.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Many fear being in or around the dark alone. A few see it as something that changes the nature of objects and people, no longer being helpful, passive, or friendly, but aggressive, hateful creatures bent on harming them in some way. Some see it as more, something palpable, tangible, as if it could creep up on them and consume them whole. Some fear having one of their senses become useless, having to rely on the others of self preservation. Those who don't fear it see it as just that, dark. A space where light does not enter. Nothing changes there, it is just the same as when light is gracing it. Some people describe this fear as not a fear of the dark itself, but what may hide in it.

Right now, someone is looking down a hallway. It is nighttime, the bulbs in the ceiling light have burnt out and the entire area is occluded by darkness. They have to go through this hallway. Once they've mustered up the courage, they start to move, but then a sharp rattling sound echoes down the way. What goes through their mind? That it is just their house and it is just darkness, a can probably fell, or the cat ran through, nothing has changed, that the rational mind assures it? Perhaps it is the darkness attempting to lure them deeper in, so they may not escape. But what if it is something of unimaginable evil, lurking in the blind spot ahead, lying in wait for them?

They have to get through. They once more gather their strength and start walking, quickly, but not in a panic. Steps sound behind them. They walking turns into a more hurried jog. Is it just an echo, or is something behind them? Halfway down, the jog turns into a sprint out of fear, moving a fast as possible and slamming into the door at the end of the hall. Opening it and taking shelter inside, slamming it behind them. The room is dark as well. The lightswitch is beside them. To the rational, it will illuminate, to those afraid of the dark itself, it will destroy it. But what of those afraid of what's in the dark? Will the light make the evil go away? Or will it just make it easier for it to see them? They hit the switch, only one way to find out.

___________________________

I like this story more than the last, but it is not perfect in anyway. Well, part 2 of my 3 part experiment is done. One left, I already have an idea for it and am working it out in my head. Maybe it wasn't Jet-pilot-tyrannosaur-bombing-triceratops-awesome but close enough. Anyway, part 3 ahead. On the way!

Here is a short list of some of my story idea's. Note, a few of these were intended to be short stories, but I like them nonetheless.

Redemption- America's best assassin takes out the son of a corrupt politician. The politician, after finding out about the assassin, has the assassin's daughter kidnapped. This leads the assassin on a long and brutal journey to get her back. (For this idea, I have a lot of great ideas for set-pieces and scenes, such as an interesting ending to a vehicle chase.)

Murder on an Empty Stomach- This story involves an overweight rookie detective with a great talent for solving crimes, but with a very weak stomach for blood and gore. With a murder happening in the safe of the local banks vault, and with no solid evidence, the detective uses the power of reasoning and wits to locate the murderer.

Creation- Two kids go to play in the local park, and discover a doorway to another land. In this land, anything they think can become a reality, and they slowly create their own perfect world. While they create, a dark shadow watches from the shadow of the doorway home.

Second Chance- A man returns home from work, only to discover someone in his home, wanting him dead. After a short struggle, the man is murdered. His world turns dark, and starts to drift away, but then he wakes up in bed, discovering that he is now three days in the past. Using what he know happens in his life during those three days, he attempts to prevent his own murder from occurring.

Empty World- A woman wakes up to find everyone gone. Every person, animal, and creature. As she wanders around town, she tries to piece together where everything went. While she travels, she notices two things; the moon is staying perfectly still in the sky while the moon still moves, and that a extremely tall tower far off in the distance that was not there before could be her only answer.

Mein Heir- A hansome and talented actor secretly discoveres he is related to Hitler. While trying to keep this away from the public, he slowly starts looking more and more like the dictator. He covers for this by writing and directing a comedy about Hitler. But while filming, he realizes that he is no longer acting, and wonders what to do with himself.

Agent Dustbin- A young boy, while playing a video game, falls backwards out of his window, and down into a dumpster. Instead of landing inside, he falls through the bottom, and discovers a secret underground world, where theives and agents pose as the homeless in order to get information, and go unnoticed while above ground. Instead of killing the boy, the group decide to train him to be the best homeless assassin know to man.

Friday, March 4, 2011

I know I that I usually post these the day after practice but I'm not the only one who's late:
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Irony

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Look we won!

Look, we won again!

We're on fire!

What did you expect?

In short we're fucking awesome. Later, nerds. Okay, so I have one complaint and that is synergy. We don't wait for focus kills and we don't go for the big kill streaks, we compete with each other more or less for points instead of thinking about the team score. This is an issue that needs to be addressed if we're gonna make tourneys.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

The cell had been sectioned off, a young woman lying face first in the grime and sanguine liquid that had leaked from her wounds. She was a mess, but her exterior revealed only a fraction of the damage compared to the havoc the internal bleeding had caused. The perpetrator sat shaking in the interrogation room, fear, rage, and anguish running through her veins. She had walked barefoot to the victim's open cell and lambasted her with a boot. Paramedics had been called in, due to the lack of supplies and adequately trained personnel in the prisons health ward. The paramedics did what they could, but in the end it was for naught. The guard on duty that night stood and looked upon the scene with sorrow. He knew the woman, she had been arrested for participating in riots during the G8 Summit, charged with rioting, disturbing the peace, and resisting arrest. He knew her to be a good person none the less, she was kind and caring, always willing to listen and help. In truth, he had grown feelings for her. His life and marriage had been falling apart at the hands of stress and time. In his head, he told himself he was crazy. An inmate? Are you losing your wits? You can't be serious. His mind kept saying it, but the thoughts of her kept overcoming them. Suddenly, squawks of outrage came from the neighboring cell block. A slender woman with snuff-colored shoulder length hair, worn in a loose bun, came tramping down the catwalks. Her gaunt face was contorted in petulance. She wore a blue paramedic suit unzipped enough to give a glimpse of a locket on a braided silver chain, her black boots treading heavily on the metal. She had her eyes locked on the guard, who felt a deep chill run through him. The fire in her eyes burned brighter every step until she reached the sentry in blue. The chain was quickly unfastened and used as a flail as the locket slapped the sentinel's face. He was not sure how to respond. Should it be anger? Apologetic? Confusion? But he could not act and stayed stoic. She berated him with words in her fury and, surprisingly enough, was all she did. A ring fell the two flights down to the cement below, and she, in a fit of an unexplainable combination of emotion, was gone. The guard knew what had happened, she had overheard the killer's stories of the inmate and the guard. Perhaps this was for the best, ending something that could not be fixed or saved. All he knew is that this day could only get worse.

I don't like this story. I dislike this story. I hate this story. I feel that it rambled a bit, the ending was horrible, (I ran into a block there and just improv-ed it through with terrible results) and the sensibility was gone from it, but it was hard to put anything to it. It has the movie feel of "Who in the hell would do this?" It took all I could muster not to just have the prison explode and be done with it. Holy-Jumping-Fucking-Jesus the prompt was a hell of a challenge, and I suppose this will have to do. Next week I'm doing my own idea.

Everyone knows that the US isn't doing so hot in education, poor test schools, childhood obesity, the works. I won't say this is the kids fault as much as shitty teaching and shitty parenting but when Providence sends out pink slips to ALL of it's public school teachers which is nearly 2,000 people some shit has hit the fan.

From the film "Waiting For Superman"

Why did Providence decide that cutting all of their teachers is a good idea? Money. Rhode Island is facing a big budget deficit so what's the best way to save some cash? Why, ruin the children's education of course!Now not all of the teachers will lose their jobs but we're looking at class sizes of up to 60 kids per classroom. This means hardly any individual attention for students and a terrible learning environment where discipline and teaching is meaningless.

The future

How do you fix a problem by making it worse? If you took cable TV out of prisons, subsidies for migrant workers, state environmental incentives, Hell, any of the stupid things the government spends money on you would have plenty of funding for schools, plenty of money to make a difference in the lives of our young people but instead you fire all the fucking teachers. Go fuck yourself Rhode Island.

Even animals hate you.

The sad part about this is that it isn't just the tiniest state in the States that's doing this crap, it's happening all over the country. The children of today become the America of tomorrow, to ensure the survival and prosperity of this country we should be focusing as much attention as we can on making sure we are filling the halls of congress with the smartest this country has to offer and not just our government but hospitals, laboratories, and businesses as well. I find it astonishing how some people just can't sit down actually fire off a couple of neurons towards an image of a future in which America isn't the largest failing superpower in the world.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

At the last meeting we discussed writing a movie script to film at the end of next year after we have finished making the Shoe Dude game. I asked everyone to write a synopsis of their ideas so we can at least have a foundation for what kind of story we are trying to tell in our movie.

Now I know everyone loves MoO0OoN but there comes a time when we have to look beyond that and make something that actually makes fucking sense. Thus the writing team from Raptor Inc. is on the case!

Here are my ideas:

Everyone's Seen A Ghost
A young boy enters the woods to go fishing at a creek. He encounters the devil looking to harvest a soul, and willing to make a deal.

Survival
Four witless lads get lost in the forest after a night of rampant booze and Pokemonand become lost on their way home. Now the four must try to pull together and form some sort of intelligence to find their way out and survive the forest and all of it's inhabitants.

I Got This
A boy who recently moves into town uncovers the dark and seedy history behind his new home.

Awkward Date
The most awkward date ever.

I Guess We Could Make A Movie
A group of friends attempt to create a film, hiring actors and hunting for props and finding a story in the most unlikely of places. Tey sit down to watch the film at the end which repeats itself into the beggining of the movie.

That's what I got and I could elaborate further on all of these ideas but I'm interested in seeing what the rest of the team comes up with. Later, gents.

Ah yes you may be wondering where last weeks performance reviews went. They went here:

﻿We had this thing going where we didn't work together at all and yelled at each other a bunch. Now this strategy may seem sound but in all reality it wasn't. Near the end we began to stick together and work as a team a bit more but by then it was too late and we lost. 0-1

Here we are back on Anchorage, the same as the first map of the day except this time we pulled together and kicked some arse. Now look at Ogachy's score, you'll notice he has a bunch of kills but was responsible for more than half of the enemy team's points. This is because he was desperately trying to be a one man wolf pack and fucking FAILED. It should be noted there has been a lot of changes to ranked Arena matches to include more armor abilities, assault rifles, changes to maps and so on but we did a fairly good job regardless until... 1-1

Not this one. This one we did okay. It was on Asylum, we held down our fort pretty well while the Reds tried to engage an assault we fended off multiple times, they had one guy as bait while a sniper attacked from afar which seemed to be decent enough but ultimately ineffective. Kudos for Ogachy and his turret and Fat4all with his sniper rifle. Shadonickles did a good bit with his sword and I held on to the shotgun. We did good overall but could have worked a bit more on positioning, we were pretty scattered. Oh, and... 2-1

This was the match I was getting at earlier. We were rolled. The changed up Cage map had us off with new routes and weapon placement, the Blue sniper as you can see got 22 kills, they were spread out but in such a way that they could cover each other's backs and ultimately kill us dead. Like really dead. I got 3 fucking kills. 2-2

Overall it was a good practice, nothing gained or lost and we're a match closer to being ranked but we could have done better. Teamwork. Maybe we should set aside a bit more practice time before we should go into ranked?

Side Note: Comedy

Darris and I had an argument yesterday. Now this should not come as a shock as we tend to do this often because one of us goes on a troll spree. Our arguments are the classic paradox, an unmovable object meets an unstoppable force. This isn't because one of us is right or wrong it is just that no one likes to quit and even if irrefutable evidence is shown in the matter it is still a matter of opinion and no one wins. These debates can be fun until it gets stupid. It gets stupid when one side says "I don't want to have this conversation anymore." That's the hint that we should change subjects. When the other person does not take this hint and presses on like Phoenix fucking Wright well grudges and bullshit happen.

Point in case, yesterday we argued about comedy. Dillon and I were quoting a Scottish stand up comic named Danny Bhoy who was making fun Irish accents and French people and other European countries and it was all in good fun. Darris chuckled at our quotations and I asked him if he had watched the link I posted ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgunWu3dWW0 ). He said no. I asked him why. The conversation degraded into me trying to explain why Danny Bhoy was funny, Darris wanted to know what was funny about him, I told him, Darris made light of it all saying he was just a gimmick comic and there was nothing special about him. I said there's nothing truly special about any comic, originality is dead but that doesn't stop him from being funny. Darris brought up Lewis C.K. and how he said he would fuck a dead kid if he wasn't wet. I told him that offensive humor isn't original.

This went on until I got mad and we stopped talking for the rest of the night more or less. Now I'm sure everyone has had these kind of arguments but the question is still up there. The REAL question. Are gimmick comics worth the time of the viewer? Is it fair to discredit a comedian having never heard or seen him/her perform? My outlook on it is this; if I went through the trouble of recording an act or a song or created a work of art I would want people to at least look at it and give me a shot, even if they thought I was fucking retarded they at least gave me the time of day to judge for themselves.

Comedy, like all art is relative to the person perceiving it. I may think something is funny like a kitten being put in a Lego airplane and thrown off a cliff. Not all people think this is funny. But don't discredit the hilarity of a dead kitten until you've given it a shot. That's all I ask.